Supreme Court of India Comes Down On Bloggers 131
An anonymous reader writes "The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that bloggers cannot shelter under an escape clause such as 'Any views expressed are solely those of the writers' to exercise freedom of speech in discussions and statements online. The ruling comes in response to an anti-defamation case filed against a 19 year old student's Orkut community, commenting upon the right-wing political organization Shiv Sena. This organization is based in the western state of Maharashtra and has been responsible for inflammatory speeches and numerous attacks upon non-Maharashtrians." The article does not make it entirely clear whether the student owner is himself accused of defamatory speech, or only commenters posting on his site. His defense that an Orkut community is not equivalent to a public forum was denied.
A column of democracy...FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! (Score:1, Interesting)
My request to all media is to stand up and speak out on this issue. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are essential to India keeping true to its democratic tradition.
The judges of even the higher courts have to pay close attention to developing trends including social networking and impact on society and cultural norms. Criticism of
political parties has to be protected...
=Smidge=
Is this so different than the U.S? (Score:5, Interesting)
Precedence (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting aside the particulars of this case, something that really bothers me about law in general is that somebody has to be punished for a precedent to be set.
Suppose (taking an example from this case), the fellow genuinely believed that an Orkut community was not equivalent to a public forum. Without a very specific law, and without a ruling on the matter, all a lawyer would be able to tell him would be "maybe".
So your choices: a) play it safe, and never do anything that hasn't specifically been ruled "legal", or b) proceed, and when you're the first to find out it's not legal, you get slapped hard.
"a" is what most people choose, and it's among the largest costs of our lawyer-ocracy.
Is there a way for a judge to declare something illegal while letting a guy off the hook if he genuinely had no way to know for sure?
Free speech vs. defamation (Score:4, Interesting)
Can someone please tell me where exactly free speech ends and defamation begins?
Is sarcasm defamation? Is questioning the reasons for the existance of a political organization(like in this case) defamation?
Coming to this case.. the comments were made in a forum which was intended for this very purpose. What next are they going to do, jail everyone who was a member because they are associated with someone posting a nasty message?
Re:Freedom and Shackles are not compatible (Score:1, Interesting)
True freedom doesn't exist as long laws limit people. Doesn't make you a slave tho. You are a slave when you have no rights at all.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Indian democracy is a hash. (Score:5, Interesting)
issues are unclear (Score:3, Interesting)
The press report on this case is too vague to allow us to determine what the Supreme Court decided. Indian Supreme Court decisions are not published on the net, are they?
There seem to be at least three issues here. First, is the student's blog community a public forum? If it is, the potentially offending material is "published" and subject to legal action. If it is not, it is essentially a private discussion and not subject to legal action. The press report suggests that this is one of the issues and that the court decided, probably correctly, that the student's blog community is not private.
Second, is the author of the blog responsible for the posts of commenters or only for his own posts? The article suggests that this is an issue in that it is what the disclaimer refers to, but it isn't clear what Indian law says about this issue and what exactly the Supreme Court said about it.
Third, what sort of content is actionable? This is not a libel case, and based on what little the article says about the offending content, would not be actionable as a libel case in the US or even, I think, in England. India apparently has a law that criminalizes the publication of statements that are divisive. It is this law under which the student has been charged. It sounds like a law that would be unconstitutional in the US.
Re:Oh Boy (Score:5, Interesting)
Naturally the government isn't taking this lying down. They have, apparently having spent their school history classes smoking behind the bike sheds, recruited a brutal right-wing militia to put down the communist uprising.
This claim is a complete pantload of bullshit. You've been smoking whatever Ganja the naxalite-Communist terrorists have been feeding you. The NHRC has long since debunked these absurd conspiracy theories. SJ is privately funded. To be sure, they have sympathizers in government, but their money mainly comes from private donations from the local landlords etc., much like Ranvir Sena in Bihar.
I'll bet you believe (like many Communists in India have propounded) that the recent Mumbai terror attacks were part of a secret conspiracy between Hindu bankers and the Jews, right?
The Communist-controlled Indian media has glorified the Maoists and demonized their opponents, but the fact remains that the Maoists are a China-funded terrorist group that actively seeks to destroy India and depopulate the North-eastern states as a vanguard for a possible Chinese invasion from Tibet. Numerous documents were released by the FOIA division of the CIA that showed how Moist militants received financial support from China and infiltrated the Indian Army in the 1962 Sino-India war.
The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf [cia.gov]
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf [cia.gov]
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf [cia.gov]
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf [cia.gov]
Highlights include:
#CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
#CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
#China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
#With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
#4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
#Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
#A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
#Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
#Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.
In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's (read up on the Nanoor genocide and Morichjhanpi genocides sometime, the Communist controlled Indian media will never discuss these things, of course), all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ genocide), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.
China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists
Re:Wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
Orkut is *very* popular in India. Everybody is on Orkut. To most of my friends (and relatives), if you are not on Orkut, then you dont exist.
That they are doing the Internet equivalent of running around on the streets naked is lost on them.
-Abhijit
Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Interesting)
RTFA!! I think we are all missing the point here. The ruling doesn't say that you would be criminally prosecuted for your own views. The defamatory statements made against the Shiv Sena were not of the person who created a community (please can we stop calling him a blogger? ).
He is being prosecuted for comments others put on a community that he started. So not only would you be prosecuted for your own comments. If you have initiated a discussion and someone says something defamatory, you can be held in libel for it.
If this is not absurd, I don't know what is. I have always said that the Supreme Court is a really over-rated in India and this just goes on to prove what morons some of these judges are.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:2, Interesting)